23 novembre 2020 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency has awarded its new multivendor cloud contract to a few companies, the spy organization confirmed Friday.
Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, IBM and Oracle all confirmed to C4ISRNET they had been awarded the CIA's Commercial Cloud Enterprise contract, which will serve as the intelligence community's cloud environment. NextGov, which first broke the news, reported Google as an additional winner.
The CIA declined to confirm specific vendors to C4ISRNET.
“We are excited to work with the multiple industry partners awarded the Intelligence Community (IC) Commercial Cloud Enterprise (C2E) Cloud Service Provider (CSP) contract and look forward to utilizing, alongside our IC colleagues, the expanded cloud capabilities resulting from this diversified partnership,” CIA spokesperson Chelsea Robinson said.
The CIA declined to provide the contract value, though contract documents obtained by NextGov in 2019 stated it could be valued in the “tens of billions.” The draft request for proposals, released in February 2020 and obtained by C4ISRNET, was considering a 15-year performance period, a five-year base and two five-year options.
The C2E contract is a follow-on award to the intel community's Commercial Cloud Services contact. AWS was the sole provider for that contract, which was worth $600 million.
“We are honored to continue to support the intelligence community as they expand their transformational use of cloud computing. Together, we're building innovative solutions across all classification levels that deliver operational excellence and allow for missions to be performed faster and more securely,” an AWS spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for Microsoft, which won the Defense Department's single-award, controversial Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract, said the company was “eager” to work with the intel community.
“We applaud the intelligence community in advancing its cloud strategy to the next phase in order to take advantage of the latest commercially available cloud technologies,” the AWS spokesperson said.
Jay Bellisimo, IBM's general manager for the U.S. public and federal market, said that the company “is proud to further its collaboration with the U.S. federal government.”
14 août 2018 | International, Aérospatial
Bill Carey General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) will nearly quadruple the space it occupies at the Grand Sky research and development park in Grand Forks, North Dakota, the park announced Aug. ... http://aviationweek.com/air-dominance/general-atomics-expands-presence-north-dakota-rd-park
22 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial
By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — German and French officials emerged from a meeting in Toulouse, France, this week with fresh promises that a next-generation aircraft program and new European battle tank spearheaded by the two countries would advance soon. The summit declaration follows repeated reports that both projects are at risk of failure due to political and industry-related differences. In the case of the Future Combat Air System — a next-generation fighter jet with sidekick drones — Berlin and Paris have long been at odds about the exportability of the future weapon, with Germany favoring a more restrictive stance than France. Airbus and Dassault are the two main industry players in FCAS. The Main Ground Combat System — the two countries' idea for a European tank ready for action in the late 2030s — had been caught up in a maneuver by German manufacturer Rheinmetall to take over the Franco-German industry team of Nexter and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, called KNDS. According to a report in Germany's newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, officials recently came to an agreement in which Rheinmetall would become a subcontractor in the project, receiving 25 percent of the work share, with Nexter getting 50 percent and KMW getting 25 percent. The aircraft and tank projects made it into the Toulouse declaration only in passing, expressed in the typical diplomatic rhetoric of bilateral enthusiasm meant to mask whatever problems brew underneath. The envisioned cooperation “requires mutual trust and common rules,” the document read. Specifically, both sides negotiated a binding agreement on arms exports in Toulouse that would be implemented once unspecified “final steps” are taken, it added. French newspaper La Tribune reported that the Oct. 16 meeting reiterated the objective of awarding study contracts for an FCAS demonstrator early next year. That means the financial commitments will now begin to grow larger, eventually reaching a level of billions of Euros in just a few years' time. German lawmakers, meanwhile, are still awaiting details on exactly how the government plans to proceed. A formal spending request to the appropriations and defense committees was still outstanding as of this week, and a Defence Ministry spokeswoman declined to be specific on the envisioned timing in a statement to Defense News. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/10/18/french-german-leaders-provide-fresh-top-cover-for-new-warplane-tank-projects/
14 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial
By: Valerie Insinna   WASHINGTON — Despite impacts from the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Air Force's B-21 Raider program remains on track as Northrop Grumman continues production of the first B-21 bomber, the head of the service's Rapid Capabilities Office said Thursday. Speaking at a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event, RCO Director Randall Walden acknowledged that some B-21 suppliers had been adversely affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. For instance, Spirit AeroSystems — which builds large composite aerostructures for the bomber — has run into challenges not only on its defense side, but also for its commercial division due to the halt in Boeing 737 Max production, Walden said. Spirit received $80 million in Defense Production Act funds meant to help stimulate struggling businesses, and Walden noted that the company also funneled employees who normally work on the 737 Max line into augmenting B-21 production efforts. “The folks that are not manufacturing 737s and those components came over to our production line and really kind of beefed up — where people had some COVID issues — they beefed up that portion of our production,” he said. “Right now, the components that we're building are really for the test fleet, but the good news: All of what we're doing today is really insightful for what we're doing for production in the future.” After completing a critical design review in 2018, B-21 prime contractor Northrop Grumman is currently building the first B-21 test aircraft in Palmdale, California. The Air Force plans to buy at least 100 Raiders. On Aug. 3, Walden traveled with Defense Secretary Mark Esper to Northrop's B-21 design and development office in Melbourne, Florida, to receive a program update. “I think overall his takeaway was he's happy with the progress we're making,” Walden said. “The good news is all of the tough critical designs, all of the hard engineering is kind of behind us, and now it's a matter of actually producing the airplane and actually rolling it out and getting on with the developmental flight test activities.” Walden said his office has flight tested some B-21 mission systems and avionics on a surrogate aircraft to work though software bugs and design problems before installation on the actual B-21 test aircraft. “I know we're not going to be immune from design flaws. We're going to have to work through those, and we're doing some of that today. From my perspective, I want to find out what those design deficiencies were as fast as I can, get on with a solution, get that into the program in the development phase, and get on with production.” In July 2019, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen Wilson said the Raider could take to the skies in about “863 days,” which would pinpoint an inaugural flight in December 2021. Walden has since said that would be the earliest possible date for first flight. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/08/13/b-21-still-on-track-despite-complications-from-pandemic/